Coming out under fire book

pp., x , 46 illus., notes, index

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    Published: September
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    Published: September
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Awards & distinctions

Lambda Literary Award for Gay Men's Nonfiction

During World War II, as the United States called on its citizens to serve in unprecedented numbers, the presence of gay Americans in the armed forces increasingly conflicted with the expanding antihomosexual policies and procedures of the military. In Coming Out Under Fire, Allan Bérubé examines in depth and detail these social and political confrontation--not as a story of how the military victimized homosexuals, but as a story of how a dynamic power relationship developed between gay citizens and their government, transforming them both. Drawing on GIs' wartime letters, extensive interviews with gay veterans, and declassified military documents, Bérubé thoughtfully constructs a startling history of the two wars gay military men and women f

Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women in World War II

summary

During World War II, as the United States called on its citizens to serve in unprecedented numbers, the presence of gay Americans in the armed forces increasingly conflicted with the expanding antihomosexual policies and procedures of the military. In Coming Out Under Fire, Allan Berube examines in depth and detail these social and political confrontation--not as a story of how the military victimized homosexuals, but as a story of how a dynamic power relationship developed between gay citizens and their government, transforming them both. Drawing on GIs' wartime letters, extensive interviews with gay veterans, and declassified military documents, Berube thoughtfully constructs a startling history of the two wars gay military men and women fough--one for America and another as homosexuals within the military.

Berube's book, the inspiration for the Peabody Award-winning documentary film of the equal name, has become a classic since it was published in , just three years prior to the controv

Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women in World War Two - Hardcover

Reviews

This major study chronicles the struggle of homosexuals in the U.S. military during WW II who found themselves fighting on two fronts: against the Axis and against their own authorities who took extreme measures to stigmatize them as unfit to serve their country. From to , more than gay servicemen and women purportedly were diagnosed as sexual psychopaths and given "undesirable" discharges. Based on documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, augmented by 75 interviews with gay male and female veterans, social historian Berube recounts the purges in the military into the Cold War era when homosexuality was officially equated with sin, crime and sickness. The book reveals that the first public challenge to the military's policy came not from the gay-rights movement but from military psychiatrists who studied gay servicemen and women during World War II. This evenhanded study brings into sharp center an important chapter in American social history.
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Coming Out Under Fire

During World War II, as the United States called on its citizens to serve in unprecedented numbers, the presence of gay Americans in the armed forces increasingly conflicted with the expanding anti-homosexual policies and procedures of the military. In Coming Out Under Fire, Allan Berube examines in depth and detail these social and political confrontations - not as a story of how the military victimized homosexuals, but as a story of how a dynamic power relationship developed between gay citizens and their government, transforming them both.

Drawing on GIs' wartime letters, extensive interviews with gay veterans, and declassified military documents, Berube thoughtfully constructs a startling history of the two wars gay military men and women fought - one for America and another as homosexuals within the military.

Berube's book, the inspiration for the Peabody Award-winning documentary film of the same name, has become a classic since it was published in , just three years prior to the controversial "don't ask, don't tell" policy. With a new foreword